s4e4 Saumya Choudhuri, Delhi Poetry Slam
Saumya Choudhuri, Tony Cranston, Barbara Tran, Eddie Harris, New Music, New Poetry
s4e4
January 29, 2026
Saumya Choudhury, poet and organizer, joins Martha in the audio garden from Delhi. We also feature archival poetry from Barbara Tran. Hernan shares a rare live recording from 1986 of Eddie Harris in Paris. As always some brand new music and poetry from the garden to you.
CREDITS– HOSTS: Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, Hernan Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. FEATURED GUEST: Saumya Choudhury. AUTHOR QUOTES: Lan Duong, Olga Kavran, Brett Cook, Seth Donnelly, Andrew Lam, Tony Cranston, Laura Lengnick. POETRY: Saumya Choudhury, Martha Cinader, Barbara Tran. MUSIC: Juanchin Candelin el Rey del Swing, by Hernan Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra who plays all woodwinds, Genji Siraisi on keys, Chris Theberge on drums and percussion Bill Ware on vibraphones, Ruben Rodriguez on bass, Pablo Vergara on piano and the voice of Faluguni Shah. Naima by John Coltrane, recorded live at The New Morning in Paris, France. Eddie Harris on saxophone and reed trumpet, Ralphe Armstrong on bass and Sherman Ferguson on drums. ORIGNAL SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Hernan Ramiro Rodriguez Sierra. Executive Producer, Martha Cinader.
VIDEOS
FEATURED GUESTS
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Tony Cranston – Author, Teacher, and Storyteller
Read more: Tony Cranston – Author, Teacher, and StorytellerTony Cranston is a renowned author, storyteller, and teacher with over 40 years of experience worldwide. Originally stationed in the UK, Cranston has traveled to over 50 cities, reading stories and collecting many as he goes.
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Saumya Choudhury – Poet, Organizer
Read more: Saumya Choudhury – Poet, OrganizerSaumya Choudhury, an Indian poet and cultural organizer, founded Delhi Poetry Slam in 2013, promoting performance poetry in India. After transitioning to digital platforms, she created Poem Pajama and engaged with Santhali tribal communities. Recognized internationally, she hosts writing retreats and teaches poetry, supporting emerging writers and exploring themes of identity and loss.
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International Criminal Law Expert – Olga Kavran
Read more: International Criminal Law Expert – Olga KavranOlga Kavran is a Fellow at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel completing a PhD on the topic of international criminal courts’ obligation to provide information to the public, and the Founding Director of IUSTICOM, established in 2021 as the first non-governmental organisation dedicated to communicating justice.
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Brett Cook – Interdisciplinary Artist, Educator
Read more: Brett Cook – Interdisciplinary Artist, EducatorBrett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. His elaborate installations feature painting, drawing, and photography to tell pluralistic stories with broad representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy and contemplative strategies—along with…
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Andrew Lam
Read more: Andrew LamAndrew Lam fled Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975 when he was eleven years old. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, studying biochemistry, but abandoned plans for medical school after graduation. He entered the creative writing program at San Francisco State University instead. While still in school, he…
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Lan Duong – Poet
Read more: Lan Duong – PoetLan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism and coeditor of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora: Troubling Borders in Literature and Art. Her poetry has appeared in Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, Bold Words: Asian American Writing…
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Barbara Tran – Author, Editor
Read more: Barbara Tran – Author, EditorBarbara Tran is an immigrant. And a settler. She writes in multiple genres. Her debut poetry book, Precedented Parroting, is a Finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award. She is currently at work in collaboration with Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn on the screenplay for Nguyễn’s debut feature film.
FEATURED BOOKS
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Across Latitude & Language – World Poetry Anthology 2025, edited by Saumya Choudhury
Read more: Across Latitude & Language – World Poetry Anthology 2025, edited by Saumya ChoudhuryAcross Latitude & Language brings together voices from across the globe—poets of different races, homelands, and histories, woven together by something quietly powerful: the shared weight of being human. In a world increasingly fractured by borders and conflict, this collection reminds us of the quiet universality of feeling. From the ache of personal loss and…
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Andrew Lam, Birds of Paradise Lost
Read more: Andrew Lam, Birds of Paradise LostThe past plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself…
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Andrew Lam, Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora
Read more: Andrew Lam, Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese DiasporaIn his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his lifelong struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese general, came to California on the eve of the fall of Saigon to communist forces.…
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Andrew Lam, Stories from the Edge of the Sea
Read more: Andrew Lam, Stories from the Edge of the SeaAt times humorous and ecstatic, other times poetic and elegiac, the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California.
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Nothing Follows – Lan P. Duong
Read more: Nothing Follows – Lan P. DuongThe title of this debut collection, Nothing Follows, is reappropriated from a government document establishing the beginning of a refugee family’s time in the United States. At every coordinate of their lives, the refugee family provides affidavits, letters, and reams of paperwork as they work to beseech those in power to grant them “family reunification” visas…
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Precedented Parroting – Barbara Tran
Read more: Precedented Parroting – Barbara TranOpening with an exit, the poems in Precedented Parroting accept no assumptions. With the determination and curiosity of a problem-solving crow, this expansive debut plumbs personal archives and traverses the natural world, endeavouring to shake the tight cage of stereotypes, Asian and avian.
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Laura Lengnick – Resilient Agriculture
Read more: Laura Lengnick – Resilient AgricultureReal world stories from the frontlines of climate change, resilience, and the future of food. CLIMATE CHANGE PRESENTS an unprecedented challenge to food and farming in the U.S. and beyond. Damaging weather variability and extremes capture the headlines, but more subtle changes caused by hotter summer nights, warmer winters, and a longer growing season have…
SUBMISSIONS
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